Numbers don’t lie and in the movie industry, big numbers are the fuel for franchises. All the big franchises the world over, from “Fast and Furious” to “Star Wars” to “James Bond” have run on the backbones of billion of dollars. In Nigeria, franchises are new in the box office. I don’t think we have any before “Merry Men”. “Wedding Party” is not a franchise in the real sense. “Wedding Party 1” did outrageous numbers in the box office and the people at Film House decided to milk it.
AY’s “Merry Men” is more deliberate in its pursuit of the franchise tag. It is Nigeria’s answer to “Fast and Furious” and “James Bond” in a hybrid format that is a cause for commendation and which opens it wide for criticism in equal measures. To answer the question of whether the “Merry Men” franchise should continue, we need to first answer the question of the latest “Merry Men: Another Mission”, was it a good movie?
Was Merry Men 2 A good movie?
Some movies are great, some movies attain greatness and Merry Men 2 is a movie with greatness thrust upon it. The acting of Ramsey Nouah alone gifted the movie a powerful spine. The guy is a great thespian and the fact that he comes to a show and kills his role without fuss, effortlessly, is stuff for acting courses. Perhaps if he was alone, the movie might still fall short but he was ably supported by Jim Iyke who was brilliant. Nancy Isime was hot and Reginald Daniels proved with her small role among the merry women that she can also do cinema movies and not be the sore thumb.
See the real reasons Regina Daniels married Ned Nwoko
The most outstanding performance award should go to Ufuoma McDermott. She was good, the way she carried her character, the carefree brilliance with which she executed her role of a gangster deserves more than a couple of sentences. But the truth is that even a full post may not do justice to her character, you just have to see it.
Playing an Igbo woman suits Ireti Doyle and you can’t fault her attempt at Igbo. She was good and the fact that she was a composite of all the bad women in Nigerian politics especially shouldn’t be lost on anyone who watched the movie with any degree of keenness. A big improvement on her character is that there is no sex scene in this part like the cringe-worthy ones in the Merry Men 1.
There is no need to talk about the visuals, sound, and costume. The average Nollywood movie that hits the cinema usually rates above average in these regards. One outstanding scene was the one where Teni’s “Ranger” song was rendered slowly over the scenarios where Ramsey Nouah and Jim Iyke stand worrying their sister/wife. This music returned at that time that Zara is united with her son. You don’t need to be a sentimental person to have the song do numbers on you, to have the song bring emotional goose pimples to your real face.
Overall, “Merry Men 2” is a 7/10. They have now made an action movie where glasses are shattered and bullets rain. Most importantly, the show is better than part one. This is a big feat in the world of entertainment where sequels usually fall short of “originals”.
Verdict: Merry Men franchise should continue (not like AY Makun needs our permission to make another Merry Men but we have a duty to art, to cinema-goers). Merry Men should return and we have a couple of reasons for this.
Why the “Merry Men” franchise should continue
1. It is raking money.
Both Merry Men’s made money in the box office. Both of the films are in the top 10 films to make the most money in Nigeria. According to Film House, “Merry Men 2” made 234-plus million naira. The first part made 235 million. Half a billion naira in two entries is a huge amount. The way the Nigerian movie industry works, making 100 million is profitable, and the fact that the triumvirate of Corporate World Entertainment, FilmOne, and Gush Media made five times this amount in two outputs is an indicator that a third is necessary.
2. It is entertaining
“Merry Men 2” was touchy, funny, suspenseful, and generally entertaining. Perhaps you can knock it a couple of times on the head for not telling a powerful emotive story and you would be right and still be wrong. Every movie cannot be Okonkwo-Ikemefula-ish. Some movies would be funny, some movies would make you cry, and some movies are just there to eat popcorn with sprite. It is the diversity that makes the new Nollywood strong.
While watching “Merry Men 2”, I assumed there was a commentator in the cinema asking, after fifteen-minute intervals, are you not entertained? In 4 out of 5 times, my answer is in the cusp of somewhat yes and yes. That is a movie worth every naira you paid for the ticket (and every MB you burned downloading it from a pirating website).
3. It is setting precedence
“Merry Men 2” showed us that we, too, can make movies where action is elevated and shown in high definition. It may stretch your capacity to suspend disbelief a bit, it may even see you screaming “that’s not possible” more than once, but it will make you smile, more than that it would make you sit at the edge of your show.
“Ratnik” written, directed, and produced by Dimeji Ajibola is a really fine movie in setting the pace for the Nigerian science fiction genre. Ajibola is saving, “Yes we can” while “Merry Men” is saying “we can continue to make good movies again and again.”
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